Classic Poem

I hunted her down the morning.
Sharp hoof and shoulders bare,
She fled me in swift scorning,
With her great golden mane of hair
Firing the hot and quivering air.
Down broad bleached plain, up sunburnt hill
She led me and I followed still.
She leapt the rock, I saw the gleam
Of glistening haunches in the stream;
Her little murdering hoof she drove
Through reed and flower, her hair alone
With long gold fingers urged me on
Till I was mad and blind with love,
With sun and sleep and sharp desire
That make the first hours keen as fire;
And crashing through the blinding light,
Fiercer than flame, faster than flight,
I hunted her down the morning.

I loved the beast in her, the hide
Sweating and sleek, the heaving side;
I burned to stifle savagely
The human mouth that taunted me
The supple, tawny flanks above,
As on the Isle of Awful Love
Pasiphae and the Bull of Crete
Tasted strange lips and found them sweet.
I heard as they heard for love's song,
The sound of hoofs the whole night long!
I hunted her down the morning.
She leapt with neighing shrill!
No stream too deep, too high no hill
To master such bright scorning;
And where the reeds grow thick and tall
I saw her stumble, sway and fall.
But from her eyes as I drew near
Leapt fear and something more than fear,
She did not stir, she did not move,
She knew the ancient Sport of Love,
She knew me at the side of her!
From great gold mane to trembling hoof
The sleek, the tawny hide of her—
All the predestined sweets thereof
Were mine to crush or choke or kill …

Kisses grew quicker, closer still,
Lip to lip, hoof to hoof we lay …
The broad bright morning burnt away,
The stream went babbling in our ear,
We did not see, we did not hear,
We did not care, we did not move;
The Centaurs' day, the Centaurs' love!
The glorious chase was all for this,
More fleet the flight, more fierce the kiss!
She knew how doubly sweet would be
Her first surrender, and to me
How sweet the vengeance on her scorning …
And now I lie and laugh with her,
She will not fly, I shall not stir
To hunt her down the morning!